1. Technical Field
The invention relates to an emotive advisory system (EAS) for use by one or more occupants of an automotive vehicle.
2. Background Art
The vehicle dashboard continues to grow increasingly complex. As new systems are added and existing systems become more complex there is added competition for space on the dashboard and the controls are increasingly difficult to use. New systems include navigation systems, MP3 players, hands free cell phone and satellite radio; while old systems that are becoming more complex are FM/AM radio, HVAC (heat, ventilation and air conditioning), vehicle lighting and drivetrain controls.
Increasingly there is a move away from conventional controls to human interfaces to manage this complexity. In one approach, multiple interfaces in an automotive vehicle are consolidated into a single interface in an emotive advisory system (EAS).
In general, the emotive advisory system (EAS) for the automotive vehicle emotively conveys information to an occupant. The system receives input indicative of an operating state of the vehicle, transforms the input into data representing a simulated emotional state and generates data representing an avatar that expresses the simulated emotional state. The avatar may be displayed. The system may receive a query from the occupant regarding the emotional state of the avatar, and respond to the query. An example emotive advisory system and method is described in U.S. Pub. No. 2008/0269958.
Systems like EAS can consolidate all of these controls into a single interface that is also more appealing to the occupants and opens new prospects for a vehicle persona. However, speech/avatar oriented systems like EAS also have new requirements. They need microphones built into the vehicle that allow them to hear what occupants in the vehicle are saying and to know where they are speaking from; and speakers that give the same sense of directionality as a human speaker.
Another aspect of the sound system is the creation of sound that seems like a human voice's and is consistent with the avatar's position with respect to objects in the rendered space, emotion, prosody, pronunciation and gestures. The objective of the sound system is to make it sound like the avatar is actually in the vehicle talking to the occupants. By doing so, it makes it possible to develop dialog that assumes the avatar is human, causing the occupants to treat the avatar with politeness and speak to it in a natural voice. This in turn increases the recognition rate and helps to develop an emotional bond between the avatar and the vehicle occupants.
EAS also needs to use several voices. It is helpful to the listener if those voices are in different locations in the vehicle. For example, when the news is read the voice may be useful to disembody the news from the avatar.
Background information may be found in U.S. Pub. No. 2008/0269958.